Part time work and benefits advice

gabbaell

Hi all,

I was just wondering if anyone could help me out with a little bit of advice. I'm currently a single parent and have just taken a part time job as I want to now get back into work. Unfortunately the contract is only for four hours per week and I'm aware that I need 16 hours per week for claiming tax credits and such. However, I've now been told that there are a lot more than 4 hours available and have had to knock back a shift this week as it would have taken me over the 16 hours and affected my benefits.

So, what I'd like to know is, can I claim working tax credit if my average hours are more than 16 even though I'm only on a 4 hour contract? If I can do this and my hours dropped below 16 hours, how would this affect the tax credits and anything else such as housing benefit and would this happen as soon as my hours dropped below 16, or do they average it out over a month or whatever?

If anyone has any experience of this I would really appreciate some advice as I would love to be able to stop claiming jobseeker's and work over 16 hours a week but just don't know if it'll be worth it in the long run.

HappyMJ

It's worth working more hours in the long run even though you won't be any better off now.

gabbaell

Yeah, I understand that but I really need some idea of how It's going to affect me. If I'm going to be significantly worse off in the short term then I simply cannot afford to do that as much as I'd like to.

I probably need to discuss it with an advisor at the jobcenter but, to be honest, I don't trust them to give me the correct advice so I'm trying to find out if anyone else has experience of this so I've got some idea of how it works before I go and see them.

nannytone_2

are you declaring the 4 hours you work?

gabbaell

nannytone wrote: »

are you declaring the 4 hours you work?

Yes. Along with any extra hours I do.

nannytone_2

sorry if i sounded accusatory, i just wasnt clear from your OP if you thought you didnt have to declare anything under 16 hours a week

gabbaell

That's ok. Rereading it, you're right, I could have been a bit clearer about that.

pmlindyloo

Give tax credits a call and explain your situation. Ditto with HB and CT support.

Before you do that speak to your employer and see how regular hours of 16 a week would be.


HMRC talk about your 'usual hours' rather than contracted hours.


I believe that for HB and CT you may have to show pay slips on a fairly regular basis. Bit of a pain!


Any chance your employer would change your contract to guarantee you 16 hrs?

gabbaell

pmlindyloo wrote: »

Any chance your employer would change your contract to guarantee you 16 hrs?

Not in the short term at least. My manager has said she would put me forward for any 16 hour contracts that come up but when they might come up is anybody's guess.

I'm fairly confident that I will eventually get a 16 hour contract but until I can sign off jobseeker's to work over 16 hours a week I can only be £20 better off at most, even when working up to 15 hours, so I don't really want to be waiting to sign off it if I don't need to be.

WantToBeSE

If you are working less than 16 hours and are getting JSA then you just carry on 'signing on' and whatever you earn over £5 a week is taken from your benefit.

you are much better off working 16+ hours a week, but i am sure you know that already
Is there any way that you could get a 2nd PT job (for example a 12 hour a week one) to fit around the current one?

gabbaell

Well, I'm still looking for other work so if I did manage to get offered another one for 16 hours I would certainly take that. As for another one for 12 hours, I wouldn't mind doing that. It would be worth it to take me up to 16 hours although it could get awkward if they both expected me to do extra hours and they started conflicting.

But talking about other work, I've actually been doing voluntary work for a while to get some experience. With that being unpaid I assumed it wouldn't count towards the 16 hours. If I could count that then it would make things a lot easier as I could make up any shortfall with hours there. So, I don't suppose anybody knows if voluntary work can count towards the 16 hours a week I need?

Edit: I just looked it up, apparently unpaid work doesn't count for working tax credits.